


Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)

by gilligankane



Category: Guiding Light
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-27
Updated: 2009-07-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 10:16:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He stares at her, his little brow furrowed, like he’s deep in thought; like he’s trying to fix world peace and figure out the recipe for tuna noodle casserole and she’s dumb-struck with something she thinks is awe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)

When the baby cries, she groans and pulls the pillow under her head over her eyes, like it’ll block out the noise but then she feels cold hands – and  _why_ Natalia always has cold hands is starting to concern her – poking her rib cage.

“It’s  _your_  turn,” she hears in a whisper.

She groans again and rolls over until she’s on her stomach, her face pressed into the mattress. She says  _no_ , but she doesn’t think Natalia heard her, because cold fingers are prodding her to move.

She forgot how much she  _hated_  this part of Emma being a baby: the late night crying and the lack of sleep.

It’s tiring.

And  _annoying_.

“No, it’s not,” she mumbles into the sheet beneath her. “I went  _last_  time.”

Natalia rolls over, eyes barely open and pouts.

Technically, it  _is_  Olivia’s turn, but Natalia pouted the last time, when it was  _her_  turn, and Olivia couldn’t stop herself from rolling out of bed and going down the hall, telling Natalia that she was going the next time – which has become now – because she can’t stand to feel the world stop the way it does when Natalia pouts; like a speeding train comes to a screeching halt and throws her under the tracks, leaving her there.

Except that Natalia isn’t moving.  _Again_.

She sighs – heavily and loud and in Natalia’s direction, trying to guilt trip her – but the younger woman just mumbles into the pillow and rolls back over, exhausted.

“Fine, fine,  _fine_ ,” she grumbles, twisting until her feet hit the cold hardwood floor. She wants to crawl back under the comforter and wrap her arms around Natalia and just stay in the warmth between her sheets. But she pushes herself off the edge of the bed and out of the room.

Without conscious thought, she checks all the rooms on her way to the baby’s room: Emma is lying in bed on her back, a book propped open on her stomach – from the doorway it looks like  _Harry Potter_  and she thinks, briefly, that she needs to find that kid another addiction. Rafe’s door is already open and she can hear the soft snores before she even gets to the door, but when she does, she pokes her head around the wood and can’t stop the small smile that slides across her face at the way he seems to not understand the concept of sleeping with his feet at one end and his head at the other, because he’s stretched out diagonally across the small bed, arms and legs hanging off the sides.

She makes a mental note to get him the next size up: he’s almost twenty after all.

By the time she gets to the end of the hallway, she’s wincing, because the crying is loud; because this kid has a set of lungs and is clearly  _pissed off_.

“Oh hush,” she clucks as she walks into the room, scooping up the baby monitor by the crib and turning it off so that the screaming won’t wake the woman she left sleeping in her bed. “What’s your problem?” she asks, not unkindly.

The little boy with dark eyes just smiles up at her with a crinkling grin.

She swoons.

“You just wanted someone to come in here,” she accuses lightly, reaching down to pick him up. His little fist latches onto her pointer finger, squeezing with all the strength of seven-month-old. “Well, now you’ve got me in here you little troublemaker, because your mommy is passed out in bed, because of  _you_.”

He just smiles a little wider, the dimple in his right cheek creasing his perfectly smooth skin.

“Yeah, you’re hilarious,” she whispers, her feet settling into the groove in the carpet she’s created since the baby came home.

Joseph Nicholas Rivera: 7 pounds, 4 ounces, ten toes, ten fingers –  _perfect_.

“Listen,” she lectures as she paces: step, step, step, turn; step, step, step, turn. “This whole  _screaming_  in the middle of the night thing? It’s not going to work for us anymore,” she continues. “Because your mommy needs to sleep so that during the day she can make sure I don’t run the Beacon into the ground and Emma gets to school on time and Rafe doesn’t miss his parole check-ins, alright?”

Step, step, step,  _turn_.

“There’s something you’ll learn Joey, as you’re growing up.” She cradles him closer as she executes another 180° turn. “Your mommy is a  _superhero_ ,” she whispers into his already thick, wavy, dark hair. “And she saves us all, every single day.”

He squirms in her arms, and she takes it as a hint, dropping into the chair Rafe  _insisted_  needed to be in Joey’s room and not his, perching Joey on her knee and bouncing her leg lightly. He gurgles softly – a sound that used to gross her out, back when Sam was a little boy, but now, now it just makes her smile because  _her_  son is gurgling, a soft sweet noise that makes her heart skip a beat. Her  _son_  makes her heart skip a beat in the good way.

“And someday,” she goes on. “Someday, you’ll see it too, the way she keeps us together and keeps us up and running, all without a second thought. She’d give her life for this family young man, and when you’re older, you better be prepared to do the same, for her.”

He stares at her, his little brow furrowed, like he’s deep in thought; like he’s trying to fix world peace and figure out the recipe for tuna noodle casserole and she’s dumb-struck with something she thinks is awe.

He looks just like Natalia, with his dark, understand eyes and his dark, unruly hair and his little dimpled smile that makes her breath catch.

He looks every inch like his mother and every time she looks at him – especially in moments like these, when it’s just her and Joey in the moonlight streaming in through the window and their soft, mixed breathing – she falls a little more in love with him, even if she didn’t think it was possible to love someone she just met as much as she loves him.

“Now I know you’re new here,” she explains, her voice soft, but still echoing through the silent room. “But there are a couple of ground rules we haven’t gone over yet.”

Because they’ve had this midnight chats before, chats that Joey won’t remember, but things she enjoys saying; things she’ll enjoy saying for a long time to come.

“We have certain days of the week devoted to certain things. Wednesday is peanut butter and banana sandwich day, Tuesday is date night, Friday night is going to be our movie night, I suppose, even if we haven’t actually had one yet,” she rattles off. “Sunday mornings are Church,” she frowns, then leans forward until her mouth is next to his ear. “But you can tell your mommy that I said you didn’t have to go, if you want,” offering him an empty promise.

“After church, we can have fun,” she compromises, even if he’s not arguing church.

In fact, she  _knows_  he’s a Rivera, because she mentions ‘church’ and he smiles again.

“Oh no,” she moans in a whisper. “Not  _another_  one of you crazy ones,” but she’s smiling anyway. “Whatever,” she dismisses. “Like church, see if I care. _Anyway_ , on Monday’s, Rafe makes dinner, so make sure you eat a big lunch, because he’s working on the basics, okay?”

She closes her eyes and tries to think if she’s forgetting anything that she wants to say right now. “Oh,” she says a little louder than she thought would, her eyes snapping open. “Saturday through Sunday is completely devoted to loving you and your big sister and your big brother, and someday, when you’re older and moody and all you want is to keep your bedroom door locked and to crank your stereo so your rock music makes the whole house shake, you’re going to want us to stop hovering, and to start being  _independent_ ,” she snorts. “When that day comes, you’re going to get all bothered because you just want to break free from us, but I’m telling you, your mother isn’t going to let you go that soon.  _I’m_  not going to let you go that soon. We’re going to hang onto you as long as we can.”

Her voice breaks a little. “And you might hate us for it,” she admits. “You might resent us and say awful things, but everything we do for you, we’re going to do it because we love you and you deserve the best, just like your mommy. And I’m going to give you everything you deserve and even more.”

He gurgles again and the sob she didn’t know she was holding in her chest erupts, coming out like a cough, tears coursing down her cheeks, the breath expelled from her lungs.

“I’ll give you world if you want it. I’d give you  _everything_.”

Joey smiles wide and she can see her future right there, in his eyes and his mouth and perfect little nose and the way he hasn’t let go of her finger yet. She can see him growing up and running and laughing and living and loving and she can see herself right there with him, right by his side the entire time.

“All you have to do is  _ask_ ,” she whispers.

He smiles again, different this time, like he suddenly knows the secrets of the world and his little eyes slide shut and he hums quietly, falling asleep in her arms. She lifts off the chair, rocking him slowly, placing him gently into the crib, smiling as he shies away from the light streaming in from the hallway and the window, burrowing his little face into his arms.

She turns the monitor back on, setting it on the dresser and slips down the hall, into bed next to Natalia, the other woman’s arms wrapping around her the second she settles under the sheets, the way they always do; the way they always will.

Her face freezes in a smile as she lets her own eyes fall closed.

Joseph Nicholas Rivera: 7 pounds, 4 ounces, ten toes, ten fingers – her perfect, beautiful little boy.


End file.
